Ghost Town and Jeep Tour

April 27-28, 2013

We did some work on our computers Saturday morning, moving into the campground recreation room when it got a little hot in the van. 

Then we left to tour Terlingua Ghost Town and have dinner at a restaurant there that was recommended to us by other tourists.

As mentioned in the last blog, Terlingua is the remnants of an old mercury mining town, which used to have about 2000 people living in it. Stone and adobe ruins are scattered all over the hills, along with mine shafts and a few pieces of old mining equipment. The mine closed for good just after World War II,  when the market for mercury crashed, but people have moved in and out of town, using some of the old structures for housing and building a few new houses here and there. The old mining company store has been turned into a pretty good restaurant and a souvenir shop,

 and there’s a brochure for a walking tour of the ghost town. According to one Terlingua website I looked at, a couple of dozen “semi-friendly” people now reside here. From what we’ve seen, it’s a motley crew!

You pass the old cemetery as you enter the town, and we stopped to check it out. 

According to information in one of our guide books, the hazards of mining and the usual dangers of living in a rough western mining town killed a number of people, but the event that put most of the residents in the cemetery was the influenza epidemic of 1918. The graves range from unmarked slightly raised mounds with a rough wooden cross laid on top, 

to elaborate “hornitos” or “little ovens” in Spanish, which are stone or mortar structures built over the grave. 

The Mexican Day of the Dead celebration is apparently big in Terlingua, and on that day everyone dresses up in costumes and goes to the cemetery to clean and decorate the graves and light candles.

We picked up a walking tour brochure and strolled around the old town. We see the Perry Mansion on a hill, an abandoned large house built by a mine owner. 

Local legend has it that the owner brought his new wife here to live in the house, and she took one look at the place and left on the next train! The church is Catholic

 and still has plain wooden benches and a rustic altar, and some pictures on the walls. It almost looks as if it’s still being used for services, but then a bird flies through and we spot the mud bird nest on the wall, and Jack points out that he can see daylight through the roof. So maybe not. It’s a sweet little church though.

Note swallow nest on right above the left side of the window.

After our walk, we have a tasty supper in the Starlight, an old theatre now turned into a restaurant. It’s a busy place on a Saturday night, maybe busier because the town hosted their annual Chihuahua dog races this afternoon. (It’s a fundraiser. Apparently Terlingua has a lot of fundraisers. I read in a town newsletter that a fundraiser is being held this coming week to assist a resident with medical bills resulting from a collision with a flying saucer. I’m not kidding, that’s what it said. This is a very strange place.)

Today we have our jeep tour of the national park, to see some of the places we couldn’t easily get to in the RoadTrek. Our guide and driver is Lou, a nice and knowledgeable lady. 

Our guide Lou is on the right. The other couple is from Montreal.

We head out at 9 am. Our jeep is an open-air vehicle with seating for 5 customers plus driver. We only have one other couple on the tour with us, Michael and Ann from Montreal. We head out onto a washboarded gravel road for the first leg of the journey—just like at home! We’re heading first to Santa Elena Canyon, a 1500-foot deep canyon carved by the Rio Grande, one of three major canyons in the park. It’s dramatic, with a spectacular entrance, like you’re going into a GIANT tunnel. 

Note the family on the sand bar. The father on the right is about 6 feet tall.

We hike about a mile into the canyon, until the trail disappears because the canyon walls are so sheer. The echoes in the canyon are eerie. We hear a lot of bird calls, but can’t spot the birds—we can’t tell where the calls are coming from due to the echoing. We hear a canyon wren and a common yellowthroat, and we do see many cliff swallows. Jack has to investigate the river life and spots a “huge fish,” about 6 feet long he says, which I mentally adjust to 3 or 4 feet. We think it was probably a catfish. I also can see a couple of fish from the trail, but the water is quite low. A beautiful and other-worldly spot

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We then head to a scenic campground in a grove of cottonwoods for lunch, and do some more birding. Sorry, still no painted bunting. We spot lots of birds though, but we don’t add any new ones to our list. We visit several sites of ruins of homes, 

This one was the sleeping quarters for a very large family. The man apparently had several wives during his 108-year lifespan. The structure is about 4 ft high.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

one fort from the Mexican Revolution era, an old Texas Ranger station, as well as overlooks onto weird and beautiful geological structures and formations. At one stop, which is ruins of a ranch from about 1918 that  still has a windmill pumping water, we see a red racer, a species of nonpoisonous snake indigenous to the area. It’s a bright pinkish red, looking a lot like one of those red garden hoses.

We arrive back at the tour office about 3:30 pm—a tiring but exhilarating day. The heat and dust kind of wear on you. Tomorrow we finally leave Big Bend National Park area and head for Fort Davis and the McDonald Observatory.

State count: 8 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas]

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Terlingua Ghost Town, TX: 110,753

Accommodations avg cost: 23 nights @ $15.70/night